


A Day in the Life of Nana

by sunstruck (sesunmi)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Convenience Store, Everyone Is Unhinged, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Magical Realism, Slice of Life, a strange little fic, albeit slightly strange, background renhyuck and dojae, it's an irrational world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27135842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesunmi/pseuds/sunstruck
Summary: "Hello?" Donghyuck inquires, snapping his fingers at Jaemin, following up with jazz hands. The timbre of his voice is tinny and startling, and vaguely reminds him of the buzzing of a fly.This store has been home to a handful of flies. Most recently Gabe. Gabe was slightly irritating, if decent company, reminding Jaemin that he wasn't alone in his suffering.Gabe is dead. Jaemin found his remains squished onto the window screen. Death by Renjun, probably. He's merciless like that.
Relationships: Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin
Comments: 12
Kudos: 60





	A Day in the Life of Nana

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nakamoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nakamoon/gifts).



> working title: the nomin fic for ren

The clouds coil into little spirals. They’re rather scattered today, like sparse lemon pulp against the fleshy, peachy-orange sky. They’re the color Jeno’s hair was two summers ago: pastel yellow and and a little shiny under the sun.

The air con always is on blast, the air from the machine so strong it feels like wind. 

Jaemin shivers when the breeze blows against the sweat on his neck. He’d ask Renjun to turn it off, but Renjun would probably scoff and call him a poor cold-blooded creature before setting the temperature even lower. Renjun only listens to Donghyuck, and even then, half the time, and thinking about how Donghyuck would hold this over his head...it just seems wrong, _screams_ wrong to him.

"Hello?" Donghyuck inquires, snapping his fingers at Jaemin, following up with jazz hands. The timbre of his voice is tinny and startling, and vaguely reminds him of the buzzing of a fly.

This store has been home to a handful of flies. Most recently Gabe. Gabe was slightly irritating, if decent company, reminding Jaemin that he wasn't alone in his suffering.

Gabe is dead. Jaemin found his remains squished onto the window screen. Death by Renjun, probably. He's merciless like that.

Unlike Gabe, Donghyuck will probably end up fine. Renjun's always been a bit weird about him.

“Na Jaemin,” Renjun drawls, with perfect intonation and mechanically standard pronunciation. Na Jaemin shivers.

Instead of answering, he stares at the lights strapped to the ceiling. They’re emanating amused vibes today; Jaemin can hear the lights laughing down at him. _Don’t use us as your distraction!_ they say. He takes it as a cue to confront this...whatever this is.

As if he can read minds, or perhaps performing his lines in some otherworldly play, Renjun snorts. “You’re not in trouble, Jaemin. You just haven’t drunk anything aside from that.” He gestures at the styrofoam cup on the back counter, shimmering with the colors of radiation and decay.

“Gunk, that’s what it is,” Donghyuck chimes in. “That’s not coffee. Or maybe it is, and it’s just the coffee machine having it out for us.”

That...might be true. The coffee machine has this ancient, omniscient presence and rattles like it’s alive, as all things are. Plus the coffee tastes like rat poison, not that Jaemin knows what that tastes like.

“Oh,” is what eloquently comes out of his mouth, because he’s not really functioning properly. Jaemin.exe is overheating despite being in a room with violent air con and proper ventilation. He scrambles for something to say. “Hydrate or die-drate?”

“Exactly.” Donghyuck nods, satisfied. It’s patronizing and he wants to poke Donghyuck in the side _so bad,_ but Renjun’s here witnessing this sequence of events unfold and Jaemin has no intent to die just yet. He’s got lunch with Jeno after this shift. 

No, not today.

There’s just two hours to go, and he’ll be free from labor.

So he goes to the back room to down eight gulps of water. That should do it.

+++

They’ve established something of a new normality within this annoying little convenience store. It’s taken loads of sweat and tears, and a joint effort where they all--Renjun, Donghyuck, Jaemin, and Yangyang, utilized the friendship of magic to ensure everyone got their paychecks on time. And that management and a disloyal employee would disintegrate the moment they stepped foot within the little abode through the power of Renjun’s magic and their collective spite.

There’s this standard that ensures customers be non-shitty and nice. Yell at an employee? Your shoes will get all soggy and damp and you’ll be booted from the premises. Unfortunately, management didn’t enforce that rule back when they ruled, so they’ve traced it back into the runes. In fact, they rewrote the rules of the building just the other day.

 _What a blessing,_ he thinks, on some days.

Today is not that day.

Today is not that day because Donghyuck is literally threatening to kiss Renjun, and at Jaemin’s request, there’s been a new rule, written in pink expo marker and underlined three times:

**Do not make out in the storage room.**

Yeah.

That’s backfired on him, because now they makeout willy nilly, wherever they want, whenever they want.

 _You should have foreseen this,_ the store says to him. The lights flicker with laughter, glowing luminosity constantly changing, and Jaemin fears that the shelves will sway as well, even though he’s manned at the checkout.

That’s Yangyang’s thing, and Yangyang spends half the time in the break room, ears pressed to the walls, listening to their whispers.

Jaemin is probably the least favored employee employed by the premises.

 _That’s not really true,_ the store whispers. _Give yourself some credit here._

Jaemin looks towards the heavens. The store ceiling is there in its stead. He’s here, intent on moping for the rest of his shift, with the spirit of the store intent on comforting him to distract him from the entity that is Renhyuck making out.

 _Oof._ The string hanging the bulb overhead comes loose and the bulb plummets down and bounces off his shoe. _That’s rough, buddy._

===

Lee Jeno, childhood sweetheart and darling extraordinaire, rescues him from this horrid, horrid place. Well not really. 

But Jaemin’s shift is coming to an end, and he’s got ten minutes left on the clock before he can scurry out to see the love of his life. 

Those ten minutes pass peacefully-- no customers with horrendous manners, no lip smacking sounds, Yangyang stocking the shelves and the air con not intent on chilling him into a popsicle. When the hour hand hits 1, Renjun makes a shoo-shoo motion with his hands. _Yeah,_ the store says. _Get out of here._

Jaemin saves his internal celebration for when he exits the store. He doesn’t have a death wish.

It’s happened before. “See you, suckers!” Chenle had cried before the store spat out lollipops at his feet. And after that, and he got pulled beneath the floorboards, becoming one with the spirit of the store.

(...sometimes he thinks the store’s psychic voice sounds like Chenle’s. That’s quite a frightening thought. Like now, he can hear Chenle’s disembodied voice snort in his ear.)

Best to not take any chances.

“You’re so dramatic,” Jeno says, poking at his salad. He lifts the fork up to his mouth and holds it there, staring at it. Just lettuce, wet and limp.

“Jeno, I don’t want you to chew on water and sadness, so let me just...” Jaemin picks up his chopsticks, ready to transfer some of his onto Jeno’s dish, only for Jeno to simply stab into his bulgogi. He turns to look at Jeno in mock anger, who shrugs his shoulders and squints that happy eye-smile at him.

 _Oh, he’s asking for it,_ and he’s not the least bit apologetic either.

He jabs into Jeno's sides with two fingers-- aiming for the spot in between his ribcage and hip bone, where it tickles but shouldn't hurt. Jeno snorts and squirms away, and it makes Jaemin smile. Vengeance has been enacted.

There's a moment of peace between them that Jaemin cherishes dearly. Jeno smiles at him, eyes and mouth curving into crescents and endearingly sweet, Jaemin smiles back, showing his teeth, warmth crawling up his neck, mind buzzing dangerously. Jeno does the thing, the thing where he swings his legs up and rests his legs on Jaemin's thighs though there's plenty of other places they could go. So as compensation for that, Jaemin leans his head on Jeno's shoulder. They stay like that for a bit, Jeno his legs whenever he spoons another bite of his sad little salad. Jaemin's food is long gone, in the stomachs of Na Jaemin and Lee Jeno.

Right when his back begins to hurt, Jeno pats him on the back and nudges Jaemin’s head off his shoulder. “Let’s go to Neobucks. They’ve got a new drink.”

“You hate their drinks though.”

Jeno hums in affirmation. “True.”

Oh, the idiosyncrasies and unexplained mysteries of Lee Jeno. Jaemin is content to let them be.

They walk down the street, side-by-side, footsteps in sync, the sky imbued with a soft magenta pink.

\- - - 

Dreams are born from the ground as bubbles, before they rise and drift towards the stratosphere, the roof of the sky. It's always a sight to see-- these glimmering jewels dotting the sky, and with Jeno seated in front of him on this cafe table, slowcore and ambient pop resonating in Neobucks gently, it feels like the most beautiful moment in life.

Jaehyun calls Jeno's name for their orders: this new pink guava passion fruit drink, and the shake made with dragonfruit. A pastel pink and a royal purple. Combine the two to get a glimpse of what today's skies taste like.

They exchange drinks and Jeno takes a long, decadent sip of the pink drink. He wrinkles his nose and shakes his head, and Jaemin can feel the corners of his lips tugging themselves up against his own accord. Jeno has a strange hold over him, even as he complains about mundane, irritating things that he’s walked himself into. It’s endearing.

Jeno leads the conversation to the potted dandelion atop the counter, next to the cash register. “I’m pretty sure that violates several food code violations,” he says, back sinking into his chair. He nudges Jaemin’s leg with his own and juts his head towards said place.

“Oh, that’s Weed.”

Jaemin startles and jolts, as Jeno just looks upon Mark fondly. Mark, thankfully, doesn’t sit down, though he’s already intruded on their little date. He laughs sheepishly. Does he not have shame?

“Jaehyun calls his dandelion Weed, I mean. I check in on Weed every now and then to check up and make sure he isn’t dead, at Jaehyun’s request.”

That’s...that’s bizarre. “Why Weed?” Jaemin manages through his curled tongue.

“Johnny’s idea of a joke,” Mark answers easily. “He thought it would be funny. Like. He deals Jaehyun Weed, and Jaehyun stashes Weed next to the store counter. And maybe the inspectors hear about it and check this place out, but it’s just a dandelion. Plus, the Neobucks building finds it funny. No harm done.”

“Doyoung-hyung is pissed about it. He’s angry about everything when it comes to Jaehyun-hyung.”

“Should we be talking about him with Jaehyun in earshot?”

“Yeah, hyung’s thing is one sided. These places have two different demographics. The people here don’t come in for the coffee, but for sugary drinks and Jaehyun.” Jeno sets down his purple drink and pushes it Jaemin’s way. “I didn’t take you to Doyoung hyung for a reason. Don’t need you to die an early death from caffeine consumption.”

“Ah,” Jaemin says, warmth unfurling in his chest. _Jeno care me,_ his lizard brain mumbles as it scrambles out to bask in the beams.

“Mm.” Jeno hums back, staring into Jaemin’s eyes. Getting the hint, Mark leaves, and they settle into a strange little silence that speaks volumes. They are communicating without words, connecting their souls together.

Just Jeno and Jaemin in their strange little world, vibing together. That’s the life.

===

Doyoung enters the premises.

He’s breathing steadily, footsteps echoing out from his soles hitting the floor. Every move forward is a careful and calculated one. A loud presence, demanding to be looked at.

Jeno looks on, utterly enraptured. He’s leaning forward, elbows on the table to prop up his head that’s craned towards Doyoung’s direction. Jaemin leans in too, the sides of their cheeks almost touching as they watch the scene of a teledrama unfold before their eyes. 

Ever polite and tinged with microaggression, Doyoung says, impressively sounding like a white mother shopping at Whole Foods, “I’ll get a caffe americano.” Then he not so subtly eyes poor ol’ Weed, who preens under his gaze, before deciding to stare at the offending Jung Jaehyun instead, giving him the stink eye.

Jaehyun smiles. It’s a nice one, dimples and all, and though maybe it’s a customer service smile, he looks bemused, almost. “What size?”

_Ah._

Jaemin turns his face, and Jeno is looking at him, eyes filled with mirth. Jeno raises an eyebrow at him. _You see?_

He grins back and nods, before turning back to inspect the scene.

Doyoung’s standing to the side, arms crossed over his chest, foot tapping at the floor impatiently. There’s a frown fixed on his lips, and he’s staring at the clock for whatever reason, as if it’s got secrets to share.

When Jaehyun’s got Doyoung’s order in hand, Doyoung seems even more irate. “I have something to say,” Doyoung says.

Jaehyun genuinely looks concerned. “Let’s hear it,” he replies, but Doyoung shakes his head, mumbling something about apologies and one-on-ones and privacy.

“Jaemin,” Jeno whispers, lips by ghosting his ear. “I don’t think he’s noticed me at all. Hyung has tunnel vision for Jaehyun-hyung.”

“Like I have tunnel vision for you,” he finds himself saying on impulse, enjoying the way Jeno’s face reddens a little. 

“We’re witnessing Doyoung-hyung’s moment here.”

“Yeah, but why would it stop me from appreciating you? I make everything about you.”

Jaemin preens when Jeno doesn’t immediately refute his words, and it must show, because Jeno shakes his head as he leads them out of the store. “Let’s give them their space.”

Out of the coffee shop, they kiss under the pretty pink sky.

With his heart fluttering hard, grinning so widely that his cheeks hurt, and Jeno’s hand in his own, the day not even halfway through, Jaemin can’t stop himself from saying, “What a nice day” as he walks down the street with Jeno by his side.

**Author's Note:**

> [cc](https://curiouscat.me/sesunmi)   
>  [twt](https://twitter.com/sesunmii)
> 
> ....don't ask


End file.
